2024 Experiments for Change.

Overview

How do we get unstuck? New ideas, solutions, and initiatives are needed that are both legitimate and effective, as well as viable in a rapidly changing and uncertain global context.  An experimentalist approach to global rights & governance offers an alternative to both top-down governance and fragmented regulatory regimes. Based on dialogic and pragmatist frames of social change and regulation, experimentalist governance promotes multiple governance solutions (experiments) operating on different scales, in a way that involves both local and global actors and provides opportunities for deliberation, learning, and improvement.


The Experiments for Change are four action-oriented projects that take an experimentalist approach to shifting rights & governance. One project was selected for each of the four thematic areas of FORGE 2023 (democratic renewal, ecological emergencies, technology & rising inequalities) and each project team has committed to a twelve-month experimentation process (January - December 2024). The goal of the experimentation process is to identify and develop aspects of each project that have the potential to scale (spread or adopt into other regions and contexts).

  • Abstract digital artwork with dark blue and navy shapes, with wavy lines on a light background.

    Rising Inequalities

    WATA Play & Educational Toolkit
    Team: Maïmouna Jallow
    Geography: Africa & North America

    WATA is a musical stage play and school toolkit centering African history, culture, and environmental action. Through music, drama, and storytelling, it highlights overlooked women leaders in struggles for freedom and ecological justice. FORGE will support script development and peer review to strengthen its human rights and environmental foundations.

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  • Abstract blue and black geometric design with overlapping curved shapes.

    Technology

    Citizen Participation for Jamaica’s Digital National ID
    Team: Denique Soutar, Matthew McNaughton, Glen Henry (SlashRoots)
    Geography: Caribbean

    As Jamaica launches a national digital ID, SlashRoots is advancing an inclusive, rights-respecting rollout. In 2024, it will convene public dialogues and co-create clear, accessible design guidance, policy proposals, and documentation to ensure transparency, participation, and accountability.

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  • An abstract digital artwork with overlapping orange and red semi-transparent shapes and swirling lines on a black background.

    Ecological Emergencies

    Intergenerational Knowledge for Care-Centered Societies
    Team: Shawn Fleek, Manisha Desai, Elaine Webster, Mara Ntona, Michelle Lobo, Mauricio Salgado
    Geography: Europe & North America

    This project brings youth and elders together for storytelling and dialogue on care-centered futures. Drawing on Indigenous, diasporic, and other knowledge systems, it explores ways humans and more-than-human life can sustainably coexist and thrive.

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  • Abstract red and black digital art with flowing, interwoven shapes and fine lines on a black background.

    Democratic Renewal

    Human Rights of Human Resources (HRofHR)
    Team: Rouba El-Helou & Eugene Sensenig
    Geography: Southwest Asia & North Africa

    Based in Lebanon, this project advances democratic renewal through workplace training. By integrating human rights, HR development, and DEI, it promotes cross-cultural coexistence and gender equity, testing and scaling programs across multiple sectors.

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The FORGE 2024 experiment for change process will also be accompanied by the following projects:

  • Collaboratory by Laurel Fletcher at Berkeley School of Law (USA)

  • Africa Drive for Democracy Project by Deus Valentine Rweyemamu, Center for Strategic Litigation (Tanzania)